Hello friends, welcome to Lemon Cake! When you first start you will have a nice oven, a table with two chairs, a ghost and a dream.

Starting the game doesn't seem to bad, but after finding harder recipes and unlocking new items you will find that the game's learning curve rises pretty quickly. Here are a few tips that may help you follow the curve. Please note that whilst these tips are meant for beginners and intermediates, this guide will contain spoilers.

1. Prepare Prepare Prepare!

Before opening the bakery to customers, you will be given preparation time to get organised. This time is unlimited so use all the time you need to fill all of your display cabinets, side tables and make sure you have have all your garden resources. Make sure your kitchen floor isn't covered in any flour, and you have enough ingredients for your selected treats. Your plants and animals will need tending during this time, I recommend making sure everything is ripe and blooming before opening your store.

You also get experience for all the things you do during this time. Want more experience? Don't open the bakery and keep waiting for the flour on the floor to pile up, plants to be watered and animals to be groomed. I may need to be corrected, but I believe you will get experience no matter how many times you do these activities.






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2. Remember Your ABC's (Always Be Cooking)

When you start unlocking items such as your display tables, second table and second/third oven, you will notice quickly that by lunch time food will be flying off the shelves.

This is one of the trickiest things to get down, but any middle time between serving a customer, cleaning a table, harvesting a crop, you want something to be in the oven. Easy pastries with a short cook time (French Baguette, Sweet Roll, Marshmellow Twist etc) are great to keep whacking in the oven to keep those display shelves filled.

You may notice some of the more difficult recipes take over 20 seconds to bake. Whilst worth more money, I do not recommend whacking these in the oven unless a customer has specifically ordered them.


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3. Blue Is The New Green

For the longest time, I always thought a 'Perfect Order' was achieved by finding the sweet spot of how long to bake a product. This is because I originally thought that a green smile after serving a customer meant I got a perfect order, and a blue meant an okay order. Turns out it's the opposite, you get a 'Perfect Order' by serving a customer almost immediately. After learning this, I realised that as soon as the pastry was available to be taken out of the oven, that baby was ready. You can see how quick you will have to serve a customer by checking the colourful bar at the bottom of your screen.


I'm not sure why I thought this in the beginning. It wasn't until I cooked my first Blueberry Cheese cake and was wondering why it was taking 30 seconds to cook. Turns out the bake time is actually the bake time. Don't be like me.





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4. Variety Is Key!

At first, I thought having my display cases full of the most impressive and expensive pastries was the way to make the most of my day, however, doing so I noticed that I was often stuck burning/throwing out pastries when I had no where to place a new one.

Having at least one of each pastry on your display racks will make your life a lot easier. A trick I use is that when a customer wants a difficult recipe, I bake an easier option (Baguette/Sweet roll), then swap that pastry with the one the customer wants from the display rack. This ensures that the customer will get their order quick enough to earn a 'perfect' order, and the display racks remain full. Any downtime you have feel free to make a cook up a more difficult recipe and rinse and repeat. Whilst this will get much more difficult to keep up during the lunchtime rush, this will help you achieve the 'Perfect Server' achievement.




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5. Another Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure

Have you ever closed up shop and you see a little gift sitting on your display table the next morning? These are your left overs from the night before, and whilst not as hygienic as some people may like, customers are willing to purchase these if placed on your display racks. Neat right?


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6. A Tip About Tips

When setting up your menu for the next day, you may have noticed there was a tip % at the right of the screen. This shows how much customers will tip after you complete their order. There are multiple ways of increasing your tip amount such as:

• Affordable Prices
  
• Fast Bake Time
  
• Variety of Pastries
  
• Vegan Option
  
• Gluten Free Option
  
• A New Recipe

There are also ways of deducting your tip amount:

• No Baked Pastries (Sweets Only)
  
• Lack of Variety
  
• Not A lot of Options

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Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

The biggest mistake I found myself doing early on is having too many recipes requiring a bunch of different ingredients. It's much easier to focus around only one or two ingredients for your entire menu. This means you can fill your kitchen with keep a constant watch on what you need. I found that cocoa and strawberry combinations worked well, as well as blueberry and strawberries.


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Have a Quickie

I always recommend having a 'go to' quick item that you can whip up off the bat. This can be either a quick pastry such as a French Baguette/Sweet Roll, or maybe a treat such as the Marshmellow Twist/Chocolate Strawberry. This ensures that during any downtime you can cook a bunch up and keep those display cabinets full.


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Examples of difficult menus:

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Beginner Achievements:
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Proving Your Skills

Complete the tutorial and start running the bakery! Congratulations on your first achievement!

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Bakery Startup

Earn 100 Coins! Congratulations on selling your first set of pastries!

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Bakery Business

Earn 1000 Coins! We're getting somewhere now, keep selling those pastries!

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Leveling:
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Apprentice Baker

Reach Level 10!


Levels will come naturally, the more difficult the recipe the more experience you will receive. The best way to accumulate extra experience is to water plants, groom animals and clean the kitchen. You can even do this during the preparation stage!

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Adept Baker

Reach Level 20!

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Expert Baker

Reach Level 30!

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Master Baker

Reach Level 40!

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Specific Achievements:
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Burn your first pastry!



This can be done in the tutorial, however whenever I have burnt a pastry I have no received any consequences for putting it in the waste. I believe customers do however get more upset if the pastry is burnt.

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Gotta Go Fast



Sprint 1000 times! You can also sprint on the spot, which I found helped speed up the process whilst I was waiting for something to finish cooking or to clean a table.

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Perfect Server



Serve 100 perfect orders in your store. This one is all about serving people as fast as possible. Keep a variety of pastries on your display shelves that you can grab in a pinch. Keep cooking quick pastries in your downtime and keep those display shelves full. If you have coffee unlocked, place the order down on a stand/table, give the customer coffee then serve the goodies. This is a guaranteed 'Perfect Order' but be careful that another customer doesn't take it off the display rack.

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Swing The Broom



Clean up 500 spills in the kitchen! Whilst this will come naturally, you can spend extra time in the preparation phase to clean up the spills that appear over time.

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A Loving Home



Have 50 cat adoptions from your cat café! This can start happening once you start bringing in stray kitties to relax at your store. This will happen naturally, and randomly. Some days you may have all your cats get adopted, other days you may not have any of them adopted.

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End Game Achievements:
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Bustling Store

Complete all the store repairs! For this achievement you will be required to build (Bold upgrades are ones I recommend getting ASAP):

Display Counter
Display Counter x2
Outfit Upgrade
Display Counter x3
Kitchen Window
Display Counter x4
Cat Cafe
Coffee Machine
Display Counter x5
Two Seats & Table
Cat Cafe Upgrade
Assistant

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Luxury Kitchen

Complete all the kitchen repairs! For this achievement you will be required to build (Bold upgrades are ones I recommend getting ASAP):

Kitchen Counter
Firewood Upgrade
Oven x2
Cow
Chickens
Speed boost
Oven x3
Freezer
Animal Brush
Quick Sprint
Oven Upgrade
Magic Broom

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Verdant Greenhouse

Complete all the greenhouse repairs! For this achievement you will be required to build: (Bold upgrades are ones I recommend ASAP):

Cocoa Tree
Cherry Tree
Strawberry Plant
Blueberry Plant
Crystal Water
Grape Vine
Rail Cart
Carrot Plant
Sprinkler
Apple Tree
Beehive
Lemon Tree

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Bakery Empire

Earn 10,000 coins! On day 90 I reached 6,000 gold and by level 30 I was earning on average 100 gold each day. I will update this once achieved, but I believe 130 days of playing should net you this achievement.

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Bake your first Lemon Cake! For this achievement you will need to be level 38 to unlock the recipe. Bake one lemon cake to earn the achievement (Thank you Zeonlover!)

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Thank you for reading the guide. I am more than happy to answer any questions that you have regarding the game. Please note that there is a suggestion thread for any feedback you may have for the game:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/1338330/discussions/0/2952628008340459760/

A massive thank you Éloïse for creating Lemon Cake, you can find her socials when you first launch the game. She is currently in the middle of developing her new game: 'The Ranch of Rivershine' which you should also check out!

Ciao!